


my heart was never pure

by mollivanders



Category: Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-05
Updated: 2013-01-05
Packaged: 2017-11-23 17:17:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/624622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mollivanders/pseuds/mollivanders
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bing goes to Los Angeles with Caroline, and Darcy meets Fitz in San Francisco. He tries to put the summer behind him.</p><p>He tries. Oh, how he tries.</p>
            </blockquote>





	my heart was never pure

**Author's Note:**

> **Title: my heart was never pure**  
>  Fandom: Lizzie Bennet Diaries  
> Rating: G  
> Characters: Lizzie/Darcy, Cast  
> Author's Note: Word Count - 1,688. Love runs not in a straight line. Darcy's POV.  
> Disclaimer: Jane Austen owns these kids. Title comes from a Mumford & Sons song.

He thinks of her a thousand times in secret, her every feature stolen away.

(This is how it all goes terribly wrong.)

This is how it starts.

+

“It’ll be fine, man,” Fitz says, patting him on the back, unbalancing Darcy so he falls forward. “I talked her up to you” – “You did not” – “And she’s going to go home soon, so today’s the day.”

His head is spinning. Maybe his tie is too tight.

“You’re probably right,” Darcy says and presses the up button on the elevator. His throat is tight but once the doors close, he takes a deep breath.

It’s now or never.

+

He’s rehearsed this at least a hundred times, a hundred different ways. 

“Lizzie Bennet, I-I’m in love with you.”

It comes out smoother in his head, crisper. In his head she is often surprised, taken aback. “Oh!” is a common reply before he asks her out to dinner and she agrees. Restrained, maybe, but she agrees. He’s seen her with her sisters, with Caroline. How he got on to her family, he has no idea.

If only that were true.

She will not, he thinks, be cruel. They are the same, she and him, and of this much he is sure.

(The problem, he realizes later, is that he did not know himself nearly as well as he thought.)

Still, he thinks – it could have gone better.

+

William Darcy is not at Netherfield to play house. He is the CEO of a very successful media company, he is keeping tabs on his sister and her recovery, and he is not interested in _weddings_ or _parties_ or _clubs_.

“Darcy, come on,” Bing insists, leaning over the desk where Darcy is working. He stares his best friend down but as ever, it doesn’t work; instead Bing just charges forward. “It’s a wedding, we can mingle. Act our age for once.” This time it is Bing who stares his friend down. “And I already said you’d go.”

Darcy would like to make a comment about Bing and med school and doesn’t he have homework to do? Instead he shuts his computer and sighs, grabbing his coat and hat. “Just promise me I won’t have to dance with anyone.”

Bing practically _sparkles_.

“Sure.”

+

Eavesdropping is impolite and it is not what Darcy is doing. He simply hears the tail end of the conversation Bing and Caroline are having in the kitchen about how the Bennets will be homeless during renovations and Caroline’s titter of, “And all three sisters together! Poor Jane!”

“Oh, I invited Jane to stay here,” Bing says and while Caroline scoffs the wheels in his brain are turning. “What about Lizzie?” he asks without thinking.

(That seems to be happening a lot lately.)

“Of course!” Bing says, just as his phone rings. “It’s Jane,” he adds, blushing, and hurries out of the room.

Darcy has no expectations, but he does hope.

This time, the universe complies.

+

It’s been ages – longer than he wants to remember – since he was forced into a formal dance, let alone with a woman he didn’t know. At least she smells nice and isn’t doused in perfume.

“Do you like dancing?” she asks, trying to small talk. Trying to focus, he states, “Not if I can help it.” His gaze drops down to her eyes and catches a stern flash there but he’s going to lose count so step one, step two, step three, step four. Glancing down again, he catches bemusement in her gaze and steels himself, concentrating.

(But after that, her eyes do nothing but haunt him.)

+

Darcy has never been one to frequent bars and if he was the type of person to hate on impulse, he thinks he would hate Carter’s. As it is, he doesn’t have the luxury of emotional liquidity, unlike some people.

Across the bar, he spots Lizzie Bennet attempting to dance in a game, her youngest sister egging her on. Distracted by her flushed cheeks and laughter, he barely hears what Caroline says next. “I can’t believe you and my brother are enjoying your time here,” she says, sipping at her vodka tonic carefully. Darcy’s eyes flick back over to Lizzie as she steps off the game, talking to Lydia.

“It’s not actually that terrible,” he says. “But I suppose I can see what you mean.”

Her eyes, brightened by the exercise, snap over to his, and though her laughter falls he feels his chest tighten. He tries to pay attention to Caroline and when Bing comes over, he loses track of the Bennets completely until –

“Oh my god,” Caroline says. “Is Lydia Bennet –”

As Lizzie and Jane rush over, Darcy, certain he’d been caught staring at her, whips out his phone and hurriedly replies to work emails.

“Are you fake texting?” Caroline asks, horror clear in her voice. “It’s super important,” he retorts and doesn’t even notice when she walks away.

+

Darcy thinks about this, mortified, for the next three days.

He will master this. He will.

+

Lizzie staying at Netherfield seems to be one of his better blunders. Jane is sweet, as usual, but it is almost a relief to have someone in the house who disagrees with him, who argues with him at every turn, and who doesn’t, well –

Who has interests besides whatever he is doing.

Still, he’s pretty sure he’s been caught staring more than once now and he tries to control his gaze, but all this achieves is him working distracted. Instead, he takes to his room, where Lizzie’s charms are safely two floors down, and only comes down when Bing nags him.

He really should talk to his friend about his mother hen behavior at some point, but he concedes the point.

“But you can’t really think _Anna Karenina_ is better than _The Brothers Karamazov_ ,” Caroline tells Lizzie one night while they’re walking around the room. Lizzie, who at first simply looked perturbed to be walking around with Caroline, now looks amused.

“Caroline, you really need to actually read some Russian literature before you comment on it,” Lizzie says before Caroline’s gaze snaps to Darcy.

Damn. Caught again.

(All the same, someone puts Tolstoy's _Anna Karenina_ on his bed that night.)

+

Bing has it in for him, Darcy decides. Instead of going out, now he's bringing the party to Netherfield and Darcy has no escape without being painfully rude. Looking over, however, Darcy realizes he’s standing not three feet from Lizzie. Her bright eyes are focused on him, an amused smile wreaking havoc on him before she looks back where people were dancing. A painful silence follows and Darcy shoves his hands in his pockets, wishing, not for the first time, that he had George’s easy manners.

(He hasn’t thought of him in weeks now.)

This, more than anything else, spurs him into action.

“You like audio-visual stuff, right?” he asks. Fitz had said before he should show interest in things she liked, and he suddenly wonders if she knows about Pemberley. Waving over at the DJ, he continues. “How do you like these speakers? They have a 270 degree delivery system providing true stereoscopic sound. I put them in myself.”

There’s a long pause, and then Lizzie straightens, meeting his eyes for a moment. “The sound quality is mediocre at best.”

Oh.

“Oh,” he says, fumbling. “Well, my personal preference is for a vintage gramophone type of sound.” She nods and as the song changes, he bolsters the rest of his courage. “So, this song is really catchy. I hear it’s popular and really good for dancing. You like this kind of music right?”

More silence, and the lyrics _so I put my hands up, they’re playing my song_ seem to mock him, but it’s possible she just can’t hear him. “I said, this music is really good for dancing.”

Lizzie tilts her head toward him, on guard. She seems resigned more than anything else and Darcy wonders if this party is as much a chore for her as it is for him. “I know you’re only saying this so you can make fun of my tastes,” she says. “I’d rather not give you the pleasure, so just go ahead and hate me anyway.”

His surprise must be written all over his face. “Hate you?” he asks, confused. “I would never dare hate you.”

Across the room, he sees Jane watching them.

+

The first night that Jane and Lizzie stay at Netherfield, Darcy has trouble falling asleep, tossing in his bed for no apparent reason. By the morning he has forgotten about their presence, and also forgotten that he is no longer the only occupant of this floor.

He will never be sure who is more embarrassed by their hallway meeting, Lizzie in her pajamas or him in his towel.

(Still, the house feels painfully empty after they leave.)

+

Bing goes to Los Angeles with Caroline, and Darcy meets Fitz in San Francisco. He tries to put the summer behind him.

He tries. Oh, how he tries.

+

There is infinitely more to fill his time with at Collins & Collins than there was at Netherfield and Darcy is glad for it. Fitz at his side, Fitz making friends with Lizzie, Fitz pushing Darcy on. Aunt Catherine prodding him about his life goals and asking about Caroline, however, he could do without.

“Look, you’ve just got to get it over with,” Fitz says. “What are you going to do if she meets some other handsome media heir with social skills and you never said anything?”

“She’s not like that,” Darcy says, diligently typing at his computer. Down the hall he can hear Charlotte and Lizzie talking and it sounds like they’re speaking to someone else as well. More eavesdropping.

“So what are you waiting for?” Fitz asks.

But when he sees her in the hallway, he barely manages a five minute conversation before retreating back to his duties.

He just needs to practice first.

+

This, he thinks, is how it must end.

“What videos?” he asks.

(This is how it starts.)

_Finis_


End file.
